The Subsidisation of Heavy Polluters under Emissions Trading Schemes

Elena de Lemos Pinto Aydos

Chapter 1 introduces the book and the book chapters. It discusses the exponential increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the past decades and outlines the most recent global emissions trends. The chapter then introduces the Paris Agreement and the key domestic climate change policies that are being adopted by countries in order to meet their intended nationally determined contribution (INDCs). Carbon pricing has been increasingly adopted by countries aiming to mitigate GHG emissions. However, even now, many heavy polluters participating in emissions trading schemes (ETSs) are not paying the full price of carbon. Keywords: climate change – greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – Paris Agreement – intended nationally determined contribution (INDCs) – carbon taxes – emissions trading schemes (ETSs)

A New Framework for Energy Regulation

Ruven Fleming

Chapter 1 introduces the two concepts of environmental protection and energy security. It assesses the main potential environmental issues as well as the major possible energy security benefits that are associated with shale gas extraction. The chapter starts by explaining what shale gas is, how it can be extracted and which terminology the industry uses. The chapter (and, indeed, the book) focuses on shale gas extraction because shale gas has the biggest potential of all `unconventionals´ to become commercially viable in the middle to long-term in Europe.

Carbon Taxes, Energy Subsidies and Smart Instrument Mixes

Janet E. Milne

While carbon tax measures have not yet met with success at the federal level in the United States, proposals for carbon taxes emerged in a handful of states in 2015 and 2016. The proposals address the shared challenge of climate change, but each has its own unique features and setting. Drawing on proposals in Oregon, Massachusetts, Vermont and Washington as case studies, this chapter explores how state constitutions can affect the design of state-level carbon taxes and their legislative route toward enactment. For example, the Oregon constitution imposes limits on tax rates and use of the revenue when taxing certain fossil fuels. The constitutions in three of the four states require that some types of revenue measures must originate in the legislative House of Representatives, not the Senate, raising the question whether carbon taxes can be designed in a manner that will avoid this procedural constraint. In Washington, the carbon tax proposal came forward as a ballot initiative that went to voters in the general election, following a procedure permitted under the state constitution. These case studies serve as an important reminder of how constitutional provisions that were not created with climate change in mind can influence the design features of subnational carbon taxes and political strategies.